Big military jets apparently a rarity in Indiana

It’s understood that a rarely seen aircraft can be a newsy item. But when a common military cargo jet is reported as “flying low” over an area – and there’s an airport nearby – the first impression is that perhaps it was a slow news day in Lafayette, Ind.

A somewhat breathless item from WLFI News 18 in Lafayette on Thursday reported the spotting of a “large, low-flying military plane” in the area that was flying “unusually low” over the TV station’s studios.

The studios are about three miles north of the Purdue University Airport – where, it turned out, a C-17 crew from Dover Air Force Base’s 512th Airlift Wing was flying “grids and approaches.”

But not exactly buzzing the region, as the mangled viewer video and photos linked on the station’s web page demonstrate.

Hey, I get it. Back in the early 1990s, our editor at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., wanted immediate confirmation and coverage of any sighting of the Air Force’s then-brand-new B-2 bomber, the stealthy bat-wing aircraft that would occasionally alight at nearby Langley Air Force Base and still looks like something out of the future.

The C-17, while it is one fantastic airplane, is hardly as exotic. But to be fair, we’re pretty used to seeing C-17s, C-5s and the like here in the First State. And the Purdue Airport, while Indiana’s second-busiest, is a general aviation facility that no longer offers commercial airline service. Big jets are infrequent visitors.

The jet, it turned out, was out on a routine training exercise. 512th fliers Maj. Paul Fisher, an Air Force Reservist, and fellow reservists Capt. Jon Jensen and Lt. Wes Britt, all are graduates of Purdue’s School of Aviation Technology. Fisher told News 18 that the aircraft was already in the area, and the three thought it would be fun to employ the familiar Purdue runway.

And they did. Reported News 18, “The plane passed right over the WLFI studios in West Lafayette. Our crew says the plane was flying unusually low.”

Funny how something so common in one area is so newsy in another, isn’t it?

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About this Blog

It’s all things military in Delaware: Dover AFB, the Army and Air National Guard and all veterans' issues - particularly VA health care and employer compliance with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. Questions, concerns or story tips? Contact me at bmcmichael@delawareonline.com or 302-324-2812.

About the author

Bill McMichael came to The News Journal in 2012 after 12 years with Gannett’s Military Times newspaper family; he has covered the military, from the Pentagon to ships at sea, for more than two decades. He's written about the Navy’s Tailhook scandal; racial integration of the military; the punishment of a whistle-blowing Navy SEAL; naval operations at the outset of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; sex trafficking outside U.S. bases in South Korea; medical malpractice; and military law.